FRESH AIR
The cease-fire that’s kept Iraq’s Shiite militias in check for months is in danger of unraveling. At the same time, there’s a growing restlessness among some of the Sunni militias backed by the United States in the fight against al-Qaida in Iraq. Patrick Cockburn, author and Iraq correspondent for The Independent in London, joins Fresh Air to discuss what he sees as a tenuous calm in Iraq.
Cockburn is author of The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq. Before the 2003 invasion, he sneaked into the country to watch firsthand the defeat of the Iraqi military. The Occupation is a record of his observations, an analysis of the Sunni, Shia and Kurdish communities’ interactions under occupation, and a description of how the country is falling into civil war.
Cockburn is also the coauthor of Saddam Hussein: An American Obsession and Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein. His forthcoming book, Muqtada: Muqtada A-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq, will be published in
April.
RADIO TIMES
Hour 1
We get reaction to the resignation of Fidel Castro from two Cuban born-Americans – CARLOS EIRE, Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale, and ENRIQUE SACERIO-GARI, Professor of Hispanic and Hispanic-American Studies at Bryn Mawr College. Listen to this show via Real Audio | mp3
Hour 2
In his new book “The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse,” RICHARD THOMPSON FORD explores the meaning of racism and charges of racism can be abused and confusing. Ford is professor of law at Stanford Law School. Listen to this show via Real Audio | mp3
THIS AMERICAN LIFE
220: Testosterone
This American Life producer Alex Blumberg explains that he wanted to do this show because of his conflicted relationship with his own testosterone. He tells host Ira Glass that the reasons go back to a girl in his eighth-grade homeroom and the 1970s seminal feminist novel The Women’s Room. We also hear from a man who stopped producing testosterone due to a medical treatment and found that his entire personality was altered. (9 minutes) Stories of people getting more testosterone and coming to regret it. And of people losing it and coming to appreciate life without it. The pros and cons of the hormone of desire.